Humanities – MIT Libraries Newshttps://libraries.mit.edu/news
News & updates from the libraries at MITTue, 18 Dec 2018 18:55:54 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=5.0.1World Space Week starts *now*http://libraries.mit.edu/news/?p=28198
Fri, 05 Oct 2018 13:38:15 +0000http://libraries.mit.edu/news/?p=28198It’s October in New England, which means you’re most likely seeing jack-o-lanterns, apple-picking ads, and pumpkin spice everywhere, but there are other exciting things happening in fall as well! Starting on October 4 and going through October 10, the world is celebrating World Space Week!

“What is World Space Week?” you might be asking yourself. It’s a collection of events happening around the world that celebrate all we’ve gained from studying space and all of the excitement that comes with exploring space. The United Nations started Space Week in 1999, and since its creation, World Space Week has grown into a celebration that happens one week a year around the globe. In 2017 there were more than 3,700 events taking place in over 80 countries throughout the week. Each year World Space Week has a theme, and this year’s theme is “Space Unites the World.”

There are formal events all around the world, consisting mainly of stargazing evenings where amateur astronomers help you see some of the more easily recognizable nighttime sights. If you can’t make it to one of those events (and there unfortunately aren’t any happening in Massachusetts), you can create an event in your backyard, or right here on campus. Check out these list of event ideas to get yourself in the World Space Week mood! You can make paper models of satellites, host a space-themed movie marathon, create a space scavenger hunt in your residence hall, or visit the Museum of Science to see the Space exhibit (open through January 1, 2019). This article from Forbes might also come in handy if you’d like to find out what you can see in the October night sky.

To help you learn about all things space, we’ve put together a short list of titles that we have in the Libraries. We hope you’ll find something “out of this world.”

Don’t forget! October is the last time you’ll get to see the Milky Way until May (as stated by Forbes) and the moon won’t be present, making it easier to see sights in the northern hemisphere night sky. The Draconid meteor shower also begins on October 8 and is expected to produce around 10 shooting stars an hour, over the course of a few days. So get yourself outside and enjoy the sights of the night sky during Space Week!

Just in time for Pride Month, MIT has acquired new online LGBTQ historical primary sources. The Archives of Sexuality and Gender: LGBTQ History and Culture since 1940: Part II expands on the earlier installment with additional material from underrepresented perspectives. Focusing on social, political, health, and legal issues experienced by the LGBTQ community, a fully searchable collection of 1.5 million pages provides a unique perspective of the growth of culture and activism. Periodicals, manuscripts, posters, government documents, correspondence, and organizational papers from around the world provide a new way to draw connections between challenges of both the past and present.

In Fall 2017, the Institute launched a new two-semester course on MIT and Slavery. Co-taught by Craig Steven Wilder, the Barton L. Weller Professor of History, and Nora Murphy, archivist for researcher services, the class invited MIT undergraduates to do original archival research to investigate the Institute’s connections to slavery. Bibliotech asked Murphy to share her experiences working with these students.

Do you think MIT students bring a unique approach to this kind of research?
MIT students bring an MIT approach: They ask the same questions they consider when facing an engineering, design, scientific, management, or other problem. They dissect information to determine the “who, what, when, where, why, and how” of something. Watching the students’ growing understanding of the similarities between doing research in the humanities and in other disciplines has been wonderful.

Mahi Elango ’20 said she went into the class expecting not to find anything. Did the students have preconceptions about MIT’s connections to slavery? Did that affect the questions they chose to pursue?
I think there were mixed expectations, though all started with open minds. As their research unfolded, each began to find connections to slavery and slave economies that they had not anticipated. The connections are not initially obvious. MIT was founded two days before the start of the Civil War, and the first classes were not held until the waning months of the war in a Northern, heavily abolitionist state. However, when you reflect on the reliance of 19th-century textile and other Northern industries on the slave economies of the South, the connections become evident. It was very much a way of life in all parts of the American colonies and the fledgling United States and affected everyone. Students began by asking questions that interested them: Were there students from Southern states? How did the curriculum reflect MIT’s motto, “mind and hand?” Could you find voices of black students in student publications? Did MIT’s publications include the same racialized language used contemporaneously? What the students found was disturbing, and additional research will help us to better understand MIT’s 19th-century origins in context.

The course will continue to be offered, and students will add to this evolving history of the Institute. What are your hopes for the future of the project?
I hope that students will continue to approach the class with open minds and probing questions. Every question raises many more questions, and every “answer” deserves analysis. It’s part of MIT’s fabric to question, analyze, and apply what is learned to make the world a better place for everyone.

]]>Celebrate Pridehttp://libraries.mit.edu/news/?p=27666
Mon, 11 Jun 2018 16:30:44 +0000http://libraries.mit.edu/news/?p=27666
It’s Pride Month! Check out this year’s most recent highlights from the MIT Libraries’ collection of LGBTQIA+ works! All of the items listed are available at MIT Libraries or via Borrow Direct.

]]>Asian Pacific American Heritage Month: Literaturehttp://libraries.mit.edu/news/?p=27576
Tue, 22 May 2018 13:42:50 +0000http://libraries.mit.edu/news/?p=27576Each week in May, MIT Libraries will highlight different materials to help you learn more about the Asian Pacific American experience. This week, we are highlighting literature in our collection.

We also have lots of novels to choose from. For example, Jenny Zhang’s Sour Heart, Monique Vuong’s Bitter in the Mouth, Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior, Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies, and Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere. If you want to read a novel with an MIT connection, MIT alumna and young adult author Gloria Chao wrote American Panda, about Mei Lu, a freshman at MIT, who is caught between her Taiwanese and American cultures. Another young adult title is Emily X.R. Pan’s Astonishing Color of After, about Leigh, who travels to Taiwan to meet her grandparents for the first time after her mother’s suicide. You may also be interested in reading Malinda Lo’s young adult novels Huntress, Ash, and Adaptation. The Asian American classic novel No-no Boy by John Okada describes a Japanese American man’s experiences during the aftermath of Japanese American internment. R. Zamora Linmark’s Rolling the Rs illustrates Filipino youth in 1970s Hawaii, while his other novel Leche follows Vince as he returns to the Philippines after living in the U.S. for 13 years.

For a collection of short stories, check out A Life of Adventure and Delight by Akhil Sharma, which focuses on Indian protagonists at home and abroad. Have a laugh with comedian Hari Kondabolu’s debut standup CD called Waiting for 2042.

These titles are a selection of what MIT Libraries has in its collection about the Asian Pacific American experience. Search more titles like these in the Barton library catalog. MIT is committed to providing diverse and up-to-date materials for all its patrons. If you would like materials that MIT does not own, please use our Borrow Director ILB services. Or, if you would like MIT to own certain resources, use Suggest a Purchase.

]]>Asian Pacific American Heritage Month: Filmhttp://libraries.mit.edu/news/?p=27548
Thu, 17 May 2018 15:02:06 +0000http://libraries.mit.edu/news/?p=27548Each week in May, MIT Libraries will highlight different materials to help you learn more about the Asian Pacific American experience. This week, we are highlighting films in our collection.

One of our best resources for film is Kanopy, a streaming service with popular films and documentaries that includes many works by and about Asian Pacific Americans. There you can find many movies with Asian Pacific American actors, directors, and producers that focus on aspects of the Asian Pacific American experience. Try A Picture of You, about siblings returning home to learn a surprising family secret, or Gook, about Korean American brothers who run a store in the middle of a predominantly African American neighborhood. Of course, MIT always has a broad selection of DVDs to borrow as well, including The Big Sick, about an interracial couple dealing with cultural barriers.

Finding Kukan

Bridging the gap between documentary and narrative film is Kumu Hina, which follows a native Hawaiian mEUhC, or transgender, teacher who tries to manage her love life and teaching traditional dance and culture. A more straightforward documentary is Abacus, about the only bank prosecuted after the 2008 financial crisis, a bank in the heart of Chinatown. There is also a wonderful documentary about a documentary, the long-lost Kukan, which was partly made by Asian American playwright and producer Li Ling-Ai. The story of another Asian American woman, Robin Lung, rediscovering this lost work is told in Finding Kukan. For a documentary that comments on film itself, you can watch a historical and critical examination of Asian Pacific men in Hollywood entitled The Slanted Screen. It was produced by the Center for Asian American Media, a nonprofit dedicated to bringing Asian American stories to the public.

]]>Film Screening: The Chinese Exclusion Acthttps://calendar.mit.edu/event/film_screening_the_chinese_exclusion_act
Thu, 10 May 2018 17:10:43 +0000http://libraries.mit.edu/news/film-screening-the-chinese-exclusion-act/27486/Asian Pacific American Heritage Monthhttp://libraries.mit.edu/news/?p=27336
Tue, 01 May 2018 11:00:15 +0000http://libraries.mit.edu/news/?p=27336Each week in May, MIT libraries will highlight different materials to help you learn more about the Asian Pacific American experience. This week, you can find a variety of primary and secondary sources on Asian Pacific American history.

MIT has a variety of primary sources online and in print. If you didn’t get a chance to see the exhibit in the Maihaugen Gallery, China Comes to MIT is still digitally accessible and provides insight into the early Chinese and Chinese American experience at MIT and in Boston. MIT also has newspapers produced in Japanese internment camps that can be read here. For a broader selection of materials, try Cathy Schlund Vials’s Asian America : A Primary Source Reader, or the South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA).

If you would like to explore more, try using our libguide, which also contains links in case you would like to have a research consultation. MIT is committed to providing diverse and up-to-date materials for all its patrons. If you would like materials that MIT does not own, please use our Borrow Direct or ILB services. Or, if you would like MIT to own certain resources, use Suggest a Purchase.

]]>April is National Poetry Monthhttp://libraries.mit.edu/news/?p=27278
Wed, 18 Apr 2018 13:19:26 +0000http://libraries.mit.edu/news/?p=27278Take a break from your studies to celebrate National Poetry Month by checking out some poetry, personally selected by staff across the Libraries:

Most poetry is housed in Hayden Library, but you may request books for pick up at any library through Your Account. If you need help finding a book, stop by the Information Desk and ask a staff member.

]]>Roku players now available at the Lewis Music Libraryhttp://libraries.mit.edu/news/?p=27139
Thu, 22 Mar 2018 15:03:05 +0000http://libraries.mit.edu/news/?p=27139
The Lewis Music Library (14E-109) has three Roku players to loan out to the MIT community.

Each Roku circulates for three days, comes with a handy carry case, and gives you FREE access to the MIT Libraries’ Netflix account and Kanopy.

]]>Ancestry and the American Antiquarian Society Historical Periodicals now available to MIT communityhttp://libraries.mit.edu/news/?p=27112
Fri, 16 Mar 2018 19:11:47 +0000http://libraries.mit.edu/news/?p=27112

Ancestry and the American Antiquarian Society Historical Periodicals are now available to MIT community. Both resources can be found in Vera and are available on campus or by having VPN on your computer and using Touchstone authentication from off-campus.

Ancestry advertises that it offers the largest and broadest online collection of genealogical primary-source material, including census, vital, church, court, military, and immigration records. It offers international coverage, but the emphasis is on records from the US, Canada, and UK dating from 1300 CE. Its Learning Center provides useful information about what records are available and tips on how to search them. There are special guides for searching each type of record, and for searching for ethnic ancestors, including African Americans and Native Americans. Explore the site often as new records are added regularly.

The American Antiquarian Society Historical Periodicals Collections includes thousands of searchable U.S. historical periodicals, covering science, medicine, agriculture, business, literature, women’s fashion, family life, religion, politics, etc. from 1684 to 1912. These are an excellent complement to the journals and databases already licensed by the Libraries.

MIT and Slavery is an undergraduate research course on the founding and development of the Institute. Co-taught by Craig Steven Wilder, Barton L. Weller Professor of History, and Archivist for Researcher Services Nora Murphy, the class was embedded in the Institute Archives, where students researched a variety of topics using primary sources from the 19th century.

In February 2018, students and researchers presented their initial findings, including the discovery that MIT’s first president, William Barton Rogers, possessed enslaved persons in his Virginia household until the early 1850s, roughly a decade before he founded the Institute. Each student also chose a research topic, ranging from racial imagery in early MIT student publications to an early MIT class in moral philosophy that discussed slavery that was later dropped in the 1880s. These student projects, which involve working closely with archival material, will inform an evolving history of MIT and Slavery.

]]>Slice of MIT: Discovering Book Arts at MIThttp://libraries.mit.edu/news/?post_type=spotlights&p=26881
Mon, 05 Feb 2018 14:29:39 +0000http://libraries.mit.edu/news/?post_type=spotlights&p=26881LayerCake now with IIIF compatibilityhttp://libraries.mit.edu/news/?p=26471
Tue, 12 Dec 2017 13:00:46 +0000http://libraries.mit.edu/news/?p=26471The LayerCake development team at AKDC@MIT (James Yamada, designer/developer, and Sharon C. Smith, PI) is delighted to announce that our soon-to-be-released open access version of the LayerCake has been successful in implementing IIIF (International Image Interoperability Framework) compatibility using the Mirador viewer. While work on the tool continues, this is an important step in ensuring LayerCake’s usability for building maps layering narrative, time, and space simultane
ously. The 3-axis mapping tool is intended for scholars, researchers, and students to tell stories, display collections, and reveal complex temporal and geographic relationships in ways that purely spatial maps cannot.

The proof-of-concept can be seen here, but does not contain the IIIF compatibility.

Nine topical volumes, with contributions from more than 150 experts, cover key subjects such as past remote sensing missions and instrumentation; data processing; and sensing over terrestrial ecosystems, the atmosphere, and oceans. The work concludes with the chapter, “Applications for Societal Benefit.” Examples of specific topics include mapping peatlands, measuring sea surface albedo, remote sensing for leaf area index and vegetation, surveys on water in lakes, ozone soundings, and seismic oceanography, just to name a few.

Comprehensive Remote Sensing will provide both background and current discussion of these important efforts and findings. We’re grateful to MIT Lincoln Laboratory Research Library for this timely new subscription that includes our campus and hope that many will explore its riches.

]]>The beat of Brazil in the Lewis Music Libraryhttp://libraries.mit.edu/news/?p=26315
Fri, 17 Nov 2017 15:18:04 +0000http://libraries.mit.edu/news/?p=26315Performers Anna Borges and Bill Ward from Receita de Samba will supply the music; descriptions will be provided by students in 21G.821, The Beat of Brazil: Portuguese Language and Brazilian Society Through Its Music.

Location: Lewis Music Library, Bldg. 14E-109Free and open to the public.

The MIT Libraries invites you to join the discussion about Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah, chosen in partnership with My Sister’s Keeper.

Americanah is a story of love, race, and identity centered around a young man and woman from Nigeria. As their stories unfold, tracing journeys from Lagos to London to Princeton, New Jersey, they face difficult choices and challenges in the countries they come to call home. Learn how to get your copy of the book.

Event detailsLocation: W20-407
Feel free to bring your lunch; desserts will be served.
Open to the entire MIT community; pre-registration is encouraged but not required.Register

The MIT Libraries invites you to join the discussion about Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah, chosen in partnership with My Sister’s Keeper.

Americanah is a story of love, race, and identity centered around a young man and woman from Nigeria. As their stories unfold, tracing journeys from Lagos to London to Princeton, New Jersey, they face difficult choices and challenges in the countries they come to call home. Learn how to get your copy of the book.

Event detailsLocation: W20-407
Feel free to bring your lunch; desserts will be served.
Open to the entire MIT community; pre-registration is encouraged but not required.Register

Join the MIT Libraries in celebrating the work of book artist Werner Pfeiffer. We will be unfurling one of Rotch Library’s newest artists’ book acquisitions and an impressive and moving piece not to be missed: Pfeiffer’s Errantry. Inspired by a 16th-century graphic cycle called Emperor Maximillian’s Triumphant Procession and a Tolkien poem thought to be about war, this 27-foot scroll is housed inside of a deactivated shell casing from 1943.

“One of the dominant features in this document is the militant nature of many of the characters depicted, as well as their posture in parading their arms on horse, by carriage or on foot,” Pfeiffer writes in his artist’s statement. “The text and images are set against a chronology of war, conflict, and genocide in the 20th century.”

The evening will also feature opportunities to interact with Pfeiffer’s other work featured in the Rotch Limited Access Collection, including Zigzag, a book “exploring zigzag folding techniques, their structural as well as their kinetic effects on paper and the unusual rhythms they create in relationship to word and text.”

]]>Lewis Music Library composer forum: Christine Southworthhttp://libraries.mit.edu/news/?p=26178
Fri, 20 Oct 2017 18:21:08 +0000http://libraries.mit.edu/news/?p=26178
Christine Southworth is a composer and video artist dedicated to creating art born from a cross-pollination of sonic and visual ideas. Her music employs sounds from man and nature, from Van de Graaff Generators to honeybees, Balinese gamelan to seismic data from volcanoes.

]]>Digital Concert Hallhttp://libraries.mit.edu/news/?p=26141
Mon, 16 Oct 2017 15:36:33 +0000http://libraries.mit.edu/news/?p=26141The MIT community now has access to the Berlin Philharmonic’s live broadcasts and videos, plus a large archive of recordings.

Enjoy hundreds of exclusive classical concert videos, symphonies, and vocal works from all classical periods by great composers, as well as artist interviews, documentaries, and insightful introductions from the Berliner Philharmonic’s program books.

MIT Libraries Partner with History Faculty on Slavery Project and Class
The Institute Archives and Special Collections is partnering with Craig Wilder, Barton L. Weller Professor of History, on a new fall undergraduate course and Institute project on MIT and Slavery. Students will study the history of MIT and those who supported its founding and explore the role that the slave trade and human slavery played in the development of MIT in light of 19th-century scientific and engineering needs. The Libraries’ User Experience and Web Services team will help create a website for the larger project where faculty research and student projects will inform an evolving history of MIT and slavery.

Art and Science Meet in Three-dimensional Display
This fall Hayden Library is hosting “EarthArt,” an exhibit allowing library users to create and show expressive work on the iGlobe, a large, spherical display used for presenting images, movies, and real-time data. Glenn Flierl, professor of oceanography, is organizing the exhibit, which is supported by a grant from the Council for the Arts at MIT. “We hope to engage a broad spectrum of students, researchers, staff, and faculty who would like to express their knowledge about and concern for the Earth and our environment,” says Flierl. Although the emphasis is on work related to climate and environmental concerns, students are welcome to create any type of art on the iGlobe.

MIT Reads Builds Momentum
By the numbers, the first year of the Libraries’ community-wide reading program was a great success. Three selections—Redefining Realness by Janet Mock, Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly, and The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu—explored different dimensions of diversity and inclusion. The Libraries provided more than 200 free books to students, and library copies circulated 152 times. Discussion sessions drew 138 people, and nearly 600 attended author events. Even better, MIT Reads achieved its goal of fostering understanding across the Institute. “It really did make me feel more connected to the MIT community, even while I was far away doing dissertation research,” said one participant. “I loved knowing that each book was selected by a student group on campus.”

]]>Join us for a celebration of EarthArthttp://libraries.mit.edu/news/?p=26003
Thu, 28 Sep 2017 15:11:32 +0000http://libraries.mit.edu/news/?p=26003

Awe-inspiring global phenomena call for awesome artwork!

Please join us for a celebration of the EarthArt installation, where you can display your creative output on a global scale. Learn how to scan your artwork and email it for display on the fabulous iGlobe, or come and create it on the spot with digital painting. The best part is that you can see how your images or movies would look on a real spherical planet. Clueless? No worries – instructors from EAPS will be on hand to show you how it all works.

]]>Lewis Music Library composer forum: Jody Diamondhttp://libraries.mit.edu/news/?p=26087
Wed, 20 Sep 2017 17:47:47 +0000http://libraries.mit.edu/news/?p=26087Jody Diamond—who has played, studied, and taught gamelan since 1970—will talk about her compositions for the orchestra that her student Lou Harrison called “the most beautiful music on Earth.” She founded the American Gamelan Institute in 1981 and is currently an Affiliated Artist at MIT directing Gamelan Si Betty for the Lou Harrison Centennial Concert at the ICA on October 12.

Durdy Bayramov (1938-2014) grew up in an orphanage in Turkmenistan and overcame the significant challenges of his youth to become an acclaimed Eurasian artist and photographer. Through a prolific career as a painter that spanned more than 55 years, Bayramov was best known for his compelling portraits. His tender approach evokes the special character and qualities within each of his subjects, with whom he shared a deep rapport.

Curated by Sharon C. Smith, with the assistance of Betsy Baldwin, Through the Eyes of Durdy Bayramov: Turkmen Village Life, 1960–80s will be on view in the Rotch Library at MIT through November 26, 2017. The exhibition is free and open to the public during normal library hours.